Billy Bob Thornton Fights STDs – With Song!
By Josh Gelfand Frank Zappa fans might smell a rip-off, but actor/rocker Billy Bob “I like French-fried ‘taters” Thornton has written a new song about the dangers of venereal disease. Why? Because, as Thornton recently told Bill Maher, “it is something I think needs to be talked about,” adding that there just aren’t enough songs…
House Cuts Anti-Drug Media Campaign
By Jonathan Perri Surreal yet patronizing taxpayer-funded advertisements – often featuring talking dogs, deflated humans, and girlfriend-stealing aliens – aimed at stopping teen marijuana use may be a thing of the past. Last week, the House Appropriations Committee recommended reducing funding for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign by 71%. The cut would slash funding…
MTV European Concerts To Raise Climate-Change Awareness
The New York Times reports that Moby will headling the first in a series of concerts sponsored by MTV to communicate the urgency of the climate-change crisis. The concert will take place August 20 in Stockholm to coincide with World Water Week. Part of an MTV Europe multimedia initiative called Play to Stop, the Moby…
If They Can Put A Man On The Moon…
By Eric Leventhal The date was May 25, 1961. Just ten days earlier, German biochemist J. Heinrich Matthaei first identified the genetic code triplet. (Thanks to him, I can still remember the names of all the nucleobases I had to memorize in high school.) In February, the Beatles played their first show at Liverpool’s Cavern…
‘Reality Check’ Game Show Rolls at Rothbury and All Good
By Andy Bernstein Nearly 1,500 people have now played Reality Check, the music and political trivia game show HeadCount has rolled out to festivals this summer. Only three people can claim to be champions: Paul Arseneau of Tolono, IL, walked away with a Les Paul guitar signed by Bob Weir at Rothbury as the winner…
Where Will Your Money Go?
Here’s what you have to look forward to: Visual Economics
Rara For The Revolutionary Music Of Haiti
By Richard Gehr The music of sinfully impoverished Haiti – from rara to more modern styles such as the mizik rasin (roots) played by Boukman Eksperyans – is brash and exciting, combining vodous rhythms played by slaves with the military marching-band instrumentation introduced by French colonialists. Yesterday in his New Yorker blog, Sasha Frere Jones…
New York Philharmonic To Perform Trey Anastasio’s ‘Time Turns Elastic’
And in yet more Phish-related news (non-rumors division): NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC TO GIVE NEW YORK PREMIERE OF TIME TURNS ELASTIC WITH TREY ANASTASIO AT CARNEGIE HALL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2009, AT 8:00 P.M. An Evening With Trey Anastasio and the New York Philharmonic, A Benefit for the Kristine Anastasio Manning Memorial Fund and the New…
Don’t Save The Date For Phish In Indio
Despite numerous rumors to the contrary, Phish today made the entire state of California disappear from its map of potential Halloween-run locations.
Hearing The Grateful Dead Again For The Very First Time
By Richard Gehr Like many geezers who’ve been listening to the Grateful Dead for decades, my passion for America’s Beatles was fueled by analog cassette tape trading via the US postal system. During those long, slow days before Al Gore invented the Internet, there always seemed to be time aplenty to dupe, package, mail, and…